Oil heads towards $100 per barrel - end of the private car as mass transit in sight

[ICB]

Well, could be worse in terms of drawbacks, but what's the predicted generation capacity for it?

There are a lot of cars.

The Severn alone has over 8,000MW capabilty which is getting on for 20 coal burning stations.

Given that we've got the second highest tides in the world and vast amounts of coastline relative to land area we're in fairly good shape in the UK.

Tidal is more efficient than solar or fossil fuel (about 80%).

Scotland is aiming to generate 10% of it's requirement from one lagoon, negating one huge fossil-fuel generator.

The only major issue is that the projects are high capital cost (but low running costs) hence not attractive to conventional investors. But then nuclear is high capital and high revenue. It's basically about political will vs vested economic interests, as usual.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Sure, but how much electricity do you need to replace petrol with hydrogen?

I seem to recall the electricity input needed is about 0.5 kW/hr per road mile.

25m cars in the UK. What's a reasonable assumption for average mileage?

 

[free spirit]

Thing is, other energy sources just can't substitute for what we currently do with oil. You can do the maths easily enough. No combination of alternatives can plausibly replace oil. Biofuels compete with food crops. Nuclear requires relatively scarce fuels that are probably not available in enough quantity/quality. Solar and wind are pretty limited in capacity.

how about vast off shore wave / wind and wave power driven hydrogen producing plants, potentially even based from decommissioned oil platforms.

I'm pretty sure there's some fairly serious efforts in that direction in the north sea, with Teeside (UK) in particular gearing up for a largescale transfer to a hydrogen economy using ex-north sea gas / oil infrastructure.

I'd be very surprised if we didn't see largescale floating combined wind and wave power fields centred upon either converted oil platforms, or floating hydrogen production platforms within the next 10-15 years. In this way huge fields of floating wind and wave turbines could be spread over 10's-100's of square miles to create networks capable of generating 10's of gigawatts of electricity which would then be converted to hydrogen for transport either by tanker or pipelines. All of this could be done so far off shore that it creates no visual impact and should therefore escape the attention of the NIMBY lobby.

IMO it'll be the oil industry that will take the lead on this, as they are the only ones with the infrastructure, knowhow, finance and clout to make it happen. Problem being that they're also the ones with the most vested interest in maintaining the high price of oil & maximising the returns on their investment in their oil fields for as long as possible. At some point though, one of the big players is going to try to steal a march on their competitors, buy up the leading wave and hydrogen power companies for peanuts, convert all their petrol stations to dual hydrogen / petrol / diesel outlets, persuade the major car manufacturers to produce hydrogen models, and start mass production and distribution of offshore hydrogen on a huge scale.

When it happens, it'll happen on a massive scale with most of the other oil companies jumping in to the market in a big way once the first one has led the way, and hundreds of billions of dollars being invested as each company vies to grab as big a market share as possible, investing the huge profits from $100+ a barrel oil to grab the biggest share of the future energy market.

this is the way I see it going anyway, I could of course be entirely wrong

 

[free spirit]

The Severn alone has over 8,000MW capabilty which is getting on for 20 coal burning stations.

erm drax is a 4 gigawatt coalfired power station... I know what you're saying, but a 'coal burning station' isn't a very precise measurement.

 

[roryer]

You're just splitting hairs now. Hydrogen is the future!

The big problem is that hydrogen is just a carrier of energy, like inefficient batteries. A good article on the problems that would be associated with a switch can be found here;
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex34475.htm

"Some enthusiasts acknowledge that hydrogen is not a source, but that coupled with renewable sources, it's the perfect fuel. Unfortunately, that's just not the case. Hydrogen's low energy density makes it exceedingly inefficient to transport. To illustrate this, consider that a 40-ton tanker truck loaded with gasoline contains nearly 20 times the energy of a 40-ton truck loaded with compressed hydrogen.
If both trucks deliver fuel to a filling station 800 miles away, the gasoline truck consumes about 3 % of the energy in its payload to make the roundtrip. But the hydrogen truck travelling the same route would consume all of the energy in its payload. Put another way, if you tried to run the hydrogen delivery truck on hydrogen, it would consume its entire payload making the trip, and have no fuel to deliver.
If it's not a source and it's a lousy carrier, why does hydrogen get so much attention? Are the 985 US organizations that are listed as fuel cell developers, researchers, distributors, consultants, suppliers, associations, government agencies, and laboratories really on to something, or are they simply riding a tidal wave of government hype and subsidies? Are the coal and nuclear industries pushing hydrogen in hopes that they will get to provide the necessary energy to produce it? Once again the answers may be academic. It doesn't matter why we are fixated on an energy carrier while charging headlong into a source crisis. We must simply acknowledge the oversight and move on.
Imagining that the simplest element in the universe held the key to solving our energy problems was exciting, but now it's time to awaken from our hydrogen hallucination and devote attention to the real solutions of improved efficiencies and sustainable sources."

 

[ICB]

Sure, but how much electricity do you need to replace petrol with hydrogen?

I seem to recall the electricity input needed is about 0.5 kW/hr per road mile.

25m cars in the UK. What's a reasonable assumption for average mileage?

Fek knows, traditionally average mileage is 10-12,000 pa. but you'd be assuming that hydrogen cars are as (in)efficient as petrol/diesel ones and that cars in the future will have the same (in)efficieny as current models. Hopefully there's some chance the public transport network will be considerablly better than it is now but I won't hold my breath on that one.

erm drax is a 4 gigawatt coalfired power station... I know what you're saying, but a 'coal burning station' isn't a very precise measurement.

I was talking about an average one which seems to be taken at around 500MWe for coal, over that is "large" and over a GWe is "huge" (all a bit arbitrary sure). Drax is a bit of a special case given that it's the biggest power station in the UK and cranks out about 7-10% of total annual demand.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Give it up, dude.

We've hit 'peak everything'.

You're driving nowhere.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Sitting at home on the internet - it's the future! I knew I was doing something right.

 

[Xipe Totec]

we're not going to invade Canada...and plus, there's enought oil under Alaska to keep the world supplied for 50+ years but it won't be cheap to get out.

Where did you get the 50 years figure from?

It is debunked quite comprehensively.

 

[muckypup]

thers been extensive studies done on alternative energy and all of them have concluded that they can in no way replace the very high energy density of oil.

Also most agricultural land is now infertile and acts as nothing more then a sponge for oil based fertilizers to grow food. No oil = very little food production = starvation. Its estimated that when oil runs out the earth can only support about 1.5 billion people.

Also, it will be the end of most consumer products as they're heavily dependent on oil for production. The distribuition of food will be severly affected leaving us dependent on very locally grown crops. This will be disastrous for urban populations. Supermarket and shop shelves will become empty without cheap fuels for distribution.

Economic growth is totally dependent on an abundant supply of cheap oil, without it we'll see economic collapse and mass unemployment. Oil has been the very backbone of western prosperity, this is now coming to an end.

Some great documentaries exploring our complete dependency on oil and the viability of alternative fuels are :

A Crude Awakening The Oil Crash
The End of suburbia
Crude Impact

 

[muckypup]

Sitting at home on the internet - it's the future! I knew I was doing something right.

Oil plays a huge part in the production of computer components too.

 

[muckypup]

however on the bright side, chavs & yuppies will become extinct and house prices will plummet dramatically.

The next 20 years will be very interesting. It's all good tho as life was getting a tad boring so I'm really looking forward to it all.

 

[roryer]

I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to a crash, then again I've nothing much to lose so who knows.

 

[ICB]

Give it up, dude.

We've hit 'peak everything'.

You're driving nowhere.

Bah, doom mongerers have been at it for millenia and get it right about 0.0001% of the time if that. Professional pessimists were saying the same thing as roryer and muckypup in the 50s and 70s.

I'm not saying that there aren't a lot of problems but humans are quite good at problem solving as well as problem creating.

Not that I'm complacent or think that things are being done quickly enough but I just don't think that huge swathes are going to die through starvation or that suddenly everything will get switched off.

We'll all be wearing mini reactors and eating Quorn.

 

[Crispy]

No, I don't think there will be the cataclysm that many people like to predict, but there will have to be big changes in how we do things. Pinning hope on 'we'll figure something out' is naive and irresponsible. Bear in mind that as oil gets more expensive, everything gets more expensive, including oil-replacement technology (whatever that might be). We can't make the switch while continuing 'business as usual', so to avoid the crash, we have to be switching now, while energy is still cheap.

 

[jæd]

Bear in mind that as oil gets more expensive, everything gets more expensive, including oil-replacement technology (whatever that might be). We can't make the switch while continuing 'business as usual', so to avoid the crash, we have to be switching now, while energy is still cheap.

But it won't be a "crash"... Oil related products and services will slowly get more + more expensive, with the replacements being cheaper. Personally I see a gradual switch-over from oil... Oil will never completely run-out, it will just be too expensive to use...

 

[roryer]

I posted this in the transport discussion area because of all the sectors which will be affected by declining oil reserves, transport is the most threatened.

Over 90% of transport is currently powered by oil, and looking to biofuels and hydrogen to make up the shortfall is simply unrealistic.

We need to become more efficient in the way we transport people and frieght, and the current car based transit system is incredibly energy intensive.

Accessiblity is the key here, all goods and services need to be easily accessible ideally within a short bicycle ride.

First we need to address the planning system, stop out of town developments, and look to build more intensive urban villages, remember villages and towns before fossil fuels were designed to be walkable, notcie how the quaint old town centres are mainly terraced with relatively few big gardens and wasted space. With luck we can avoid the worst consequences of an energy crunch, and we won't go back to the dark ages, mankind is an intellegent and resouceful bunch and I'm sure we can find excellent solutions, but business as usual and this love affair with a car must stop.

There are a lot of other things we also need to do, such as improve public transport links between these centres, and develop more fuel effcient vehicles.